Two minute review of the mophie juice pack helium for iPhone 5

If you have an iPhone 5 and you find that you never have enough battery power then you need an external battery pack. How about a case with an integrated battery pack? That’s where the new juice pack helium from mophie comes in.

Here is how mophie describes the juice pack helium:

Ultra-thin, 1500mAh protective battery case made for iPhone 5. Feel the difference in the palm of your hand; 13% thinner than any of our previous iPhone juice packs. It’s so thin, you won’t believe there’s a battery inside.

Engineered with edge-to-edge protection and outfitted with 80% more battery life to keep your iPhone 5 safe and charged, the juice pack helium allows you to truly Do more. Its elegant, thin design makes it the perfect accessory, easily fitting into any pocket or handbag. The enhanced forward-ported acoustics redirects the iPhone audio towards you, optimizing playback and maximizing your experience.

Simultaneously charge your iPhone and juice pack together with the included micro-USB cable. Use the LED indicator to check battery levels before you head out and flip the standby switch when you’re ready to use the juice pack’s battery or when you need to recharge your iPhone while on-the-go.

Who are mophie?

mophie describe themselves on their website:

mophie is a California-based, award-winning designer and manufacturer of mobile intelligent devices and accessories. It is widely recognized and highly acclaimed for its creative designs and innovative solutions. Mophie was the proud developer of the Juice Pack, first ever “Works With iPhone” portable battery case certified by Apple Inc. All mophie’s products are developed to address real consumer and business needs and are seamless integrations of industrial, electronic, software and artistic designs. Mophie has operations in Michigan, California (Orange county), and China. Its products are available in Apple Stores, Best Buy, AT&T stores and other major retailers worldwide.

Specifications

What’s in the Box?

The box contains the helium case, a manual, a charging cable and a pass-through headphone adaptor.

A Closer Look

And here is the helium next to my iPhone 5 just to show the thickness.

Using the juice pack helium

The helium actually came with a charge, so that was really useful. When you want to charge it yourself just plug the charging cable into the helium and plug the other end into your computer or other USB charging device.

You can check on the progress of the charge by pressing the button and see how many of the charging lights are lit. If all four are lit then you are done.

Fitting your iPhone 5 into the helium is simple – just pull the bottom of the helium off, slide your iPhone 5 in and then clip the bottom part back in. When you are ready to charge just click the switch on the back from red to green and away you go.

Here is how the iPhone 5 looks when its in the helium case.

You can see all the buttons are still easily accessible.

If you want to use headphones you may need to use the included pass-through headphone connector.

Final Thoughts

I have used other mophie products on previous iPhones so when I heard about the helium I couldn’t wait to try it.

It is really light-weight and its very durable. It is also really easy to use and adds a significant amount of battery power to your iPhone 5. Yes it makes your iPhone 5 slightly bulkier than it was without the helium attached, but I would happily trade the slimness of the “naked” iPhone 5 for the helium any day of the week on the grounds I’m not worried about running out of power anymore.

The mophie juice pack helium is now a permanent fixture with my iPhone 5 and I am confident that for most, if not in all my daily activities, I won’t run out of battery again, which has probably been my biggest criticism of the iPhone.

The inclusion in the box of he pass-through headphone cable was a good idea and it ensures that any set of headphones should work perfectly even if you are using the helium.

If you have an iPhone 5 than frankly you need the mophie juice pack helium if you don’t want to risk running out of power. Yet another excellent product from mophie. Now if they could just make one even thinner I would be even happier.

Available now for £59.95 on www.mophie.com, the juice pack helium is around 13 percent thinner than previous juice pack air versions released for the iPhone 4S and iPhone 4, and is available in a metallic gunmetal soft touch finish.

I am the owner and editor of this site. I have been interested in gadgets and tech since I was a little kid. I have also written a number of books on various tech subjects. I also blog for The Huffington Post and for FHM. And I am honoured to be a Microsoft MVP since January 2008 - again this year as an Xbox MVP.